The 85th anniversary issue of Weird Tales features our big list of “The 85 Weirdest Storytellers of the Past 85 Years.” We’re breaking it down online, too: one honoree per day, in no particular order, for 85 days!

In Our Town, THORNTON WILDER (1897–1975) lulled audiences into a false sense of apple-pie warm-and-fuzzies before veering off into a third act of death, ghosts, time travel and lamentations. In The Bridge of San Luis Rey, he drew the ley lines of interconnectedness through, between, and beyond the victims of a single moment of violent tragedy. And in The Skin of Our Teeth, he stretched one family across the space-time continuum from the Ice Age to 1940s Atlantic City to an apocalyptic war. The first two works shaped whole genres; the third is merely the greatest play of the century.